1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication apparatuses, communication methods, and recording media used therewith, and in particular, relates to a communication apparatus and a communication method in which the desired information can be obtained using a desired media-type and which securely show advertisements, etc., to users, and to a recording medium used with the communication apparatus and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the World Wide Web (WWW) system on the Internet, a user uses a WWW browser to view Web pages provided by WWW servers.
The Web pages are described in a page-description language such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). By using HTML, various types of information can be linked to other types of information. Therefore, when viewing a certain Web page, the user follows links on the Web page and obtains the desired information.
The media-type of information at the destination of the link on the Web page is determined by the creator of the Web page. Accordingly, the user cannot always obtain the desired information in the desired media-type. In other words, for example, when users obtain information on a piece of music of a given artist, there are various users such as a user who wishes to know the name of the piece of music in text form, a user who wishes to listen to the music, a user who wishes to view the image of the jacket of an album (such as a compact disk) containing the music. In this case, necessary information cannot always be provided in the media-type desired by the user.
Also, there is a case in which a Web page has a banner advertisement linked to a Web page having a description of advertisement information. In this case, advertisement information to which the banner advertisement is linked cannot be displayed on the WWW browser unless the user clicks on the banner advertisement. This makes it impossible to ensure that the advertisement information is shown to the user.